


Dream On

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Series: Dream On [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean saw Sam every night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream On

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 5.22

Dean saw Sam every night.

Pretty standard stuff, he thought. Cliché, almost. Every night, back in the middle of Stull, watching as Sam tossed the rings and hell opened up, and Sam turned back and stood there, looking at Dean. It should have been a nightmare, but it was comforting in some weird way.

Dean wasn't going to argue about it.

* * *

Dean had no idea how long it was before he actually noticed the world again, his days taken up with--nothing, really. He worked on the car, and worked at not drinking more than a fifth of Jack every week, and that was about it, until the afternoon he walked in on Ben and Lisa in the kitchen during what Dean thought was a school day.

"I mean it, Ben," Lisa was saying, the sharp edge in her voice slicing through the detachment Dean wore like Kevlar. "Pick a book from the reading list--you're not going to be spending hours and hours doing nothing but playing video games--"

"It's not just video games," Ben said, and Dean could have told him whatever he was about to throw out there wasn't going to go over too well, not with the look on Lisa's face, but he gave the kid points for trying. "Me and Spencer and Joey, from the other side of the street, we've got this plan. There's this old tree in the woods out past the school and we figure we can build a fort there, since we don't have to go to school--"

"Benjamin--"

"Okay, okay," Ben said. "I got it. I'll read one of their dumb books. Don't Hulk out on me or anything."

"Thank you," Lisa said, and then turned to Dean. "It's ridiculous," she added. "They've basically given up and canceled school, because of all the absences."

"Everybody's all freaked on account of all the weird stuff that's been happening," Ben explained, grabbing his coat and making his escape in a thunder of boots on the wooden steps out the back door.

"What weird stuff?" Dean asked, the alarm bells going off in his head blowing apart the last bits of his self-centered fog. "Dammit, Lisa, you should have said some--"

"The weird stuff that mostly ended right before you showed up," Lisa interrupted, as though Dean was no older than Ben, which, come to think of it, Dean probably hadn't been acting like. "We're just out here in the suburbs of nowhere and it takes a while for everyone to calm down."

Dean looked at her, really looked, but she met his eyes easily, and when he flipped on the TV and made a quick run through the news channels, he didn't see anything but coverage of clean-up and recovery efforts going on around the world.

"It _is_ over," Lisa asked, and now that Dean was listening, he could hear the fear under the calm. "Right?"

"Yeah," Dean said, quietly. "It's over."

* * *

The first time the dream wasn't in Stull but in one of the thousand rented dumps they'd grown up in, Dean woke up with his face wet from tears. He'd been with Lisa and Ben for over a month--the longest he'd stayed anywhere since Sam had been in high school--but he was still sleeping on the couch in the office. Lisa had a guest bedroom, complete with its own bathroom, but the office was better, far enough away from the other bedrooms so he didn't wake anyone. Lisa had agreed to it only after he'd let it slip that the four hours of sleep he'd been getting in her house was twice what he'd been getting for the last year. No one saw him when he stumbled into the shower. He stayed there until he could breathe without choking. He felt lighter, somehow, but when he checked the mirror, he didn't think he looked any different than usual.

He must have been acting differently in the morning, though, because Lisa shooed Ben out as soon as he'd finished breakfast. She didn't say anything, but when he asked if there was anything in particular she needed help with around the house, she sat down and made him a list, smirking a little when he blinked at the length of the damn thing.

"What do your neighbors think?" Dean asked, halfway out the door to go see what kind of tools she had in the detached garage. He wasn't counting on much. "About me being here, I mean?"

"No one's had the nerve to say anything to me about it." She smiled at him. "But I can tell they think we're fucking like bunnies."

"Glad I asked," Dean muttered after a couple of seconds of not knowing how the hell he was supposed to follow _that_. He heard her laugh as he pulled the door closed behind him--a real, honest laugh, and fuck if that wasn't something in short supply--so he didn't feel bad at all about stripping down to jeans and a 'beater while he got up on the roof and cleared all the leaves and debris off.

"Let's give them something to talk about," he said later, and she laughed again, which was definitely worth the freaking sunburn he'd gotten.

* * *

Running had never been Dean's idea of fun, but you didn't have to be a genius to see Dad's logic in making sure all of them could move when they needed to. Even Sam hadn't argued--much--and Dean could tell he'd kept it up when he'd left for school. Dean had always done it, but he'd lost the habit when Lucifer and Micheal and all their crew had crashed down around them. During first few weeks after Jess had been killed, Dean made sure to run Sam into the ground just so he'd get a couple of hours of sleep every night. He supposed he could take his own advice even if there didn't seem to be much left to run from.

In Lisa's tidy neighborhood, people went to gyms to work out; Dean had the early-morning streets and the paths through the parks almost to himself. He was in crap shape to start; apparently, chasing down Lucifer and the Horsemen hadn't done shit for his endurance. Dad would have kicked his ass if he'd ever seen Dean doubled-over and winded like he was on the first morning, but whatever. It was only Dean these days. He was taking whatever he could get.

A couple of nights, when he couldn't get back to sleep--the last big fight when Sam was leaving for Stanford was never going to be one of Dean's favorites no matter that he'd take it over never seeing Sam or Dad again--he got out a little earlier than usual, which meant it was pitch black out, dark enough that the bats were still swooping in crazy circles in his peripheral vision. He took it slower to keep from losing his footing in the darker patches between streetlights, but made up for it by going farther out, 6 or 7 miles, rather than his usual 3 or 4..

It was almost dawn by the time Dean made the last turn onto Lisa's street; she lived about a half-mile down from the corner which was a good enough distance for a final sprint. He eased into it, and then really pushed it, finally getting the feel that his body was maybe starting to work again, and nearly ran over a group of guys who stepped out from behind the shrubs two houses up from Lisa's.

They shied back and Dean dodged and nobody ended up on the ground, which was good, but even in the stumbling-around-confusion, Dean was getting weird vibes off them. Not demonic, but definitely not friendly either. They looked like your average dudes who worked 9-to-5 and maybe played golf or softball or something safe and normal on the weekends, except they had walkie-talkies clipped to their waistbands and Dean was pretty sure at least one of them was carrying. Then again, Dean had a knife in a sheath in the small of his back, so he wasn't judging. Just observing.

It was four-to-one odds, and Dean hadn't exactly been keeping himself in fighting shape, but they didn't actually look like they were up for anything serious, no matter what they thought. Dean made himself stay loose and easy on the outside, but on the inside he was gauging the distances and angles of which one to take out first. Maybe that showed somehow because after standing around and staring at each other in early morning light, one of them--Dean vaguely recognized him as one of the husbands he'd seen mowing lawns on the block--muttered something Dean was going to be magnanimous and take as an apology, and the whole group headed on across the street and back down toward the main road. Dean heard the crackle of the walkie-talkie as they moved off.

Lisa was sitting on the top step of her front porch, waiting for Dean with one of her environmentally-friendly refillable water bottles and a vacuum-pump thermos of coffee next to her.

"What's with the play-sheriff and his posse?" Dean took the water bottle and drained it.

"People are a still spooked," Lisa said. "Everything might be calming down, but it takes people a while to relax, so there's a group that's organized nightly patrols."

"Walkie-talkies and guns? I'm surprised nobody's ended up in the ER," Dean muttered.

"You're not supposed to be practical about it," Lisa said, not quite smiling. "You're supposed to admire them for their manly resolve."

"I suck at doing what I'm supposed to," Dean said, dropping down next to her and reaching for the coffee.

"Really?" Lisa said, the smile finally breaking through. "I never would have guessed."

* * *

Even on the nights that he was back at Stull, the dreams narrowed down to only the parts where it was Sam looking at him. Dean almost liked those better than the greatest hits of growing up, if only because he always saw something new in those few familiar seconds. Either way, he'd gotten to the point where he knew he was going to dream and it wasn't like before, when he was dreaming of Hell, when he only slept when his body literally gave out on him. It was just how it was: he went to sleep and dreamed of Sam.

Sometimes it was right before Sam died and sometimes it was when he was a kid, and neither one of them were what Dean wanted, but it was better than never seeing him at all. He was okay with it, at least until the night that it was Sam on the granite steps of a building, something Greek-looking, with columns and people around him, and Dean knew he'd never seen anything like that before.

He'd gotten to the point that he could stay there on the couch until the sun came up, and had even fallen asleep again once or twice, but after dreaming of a Sam he didn't remember, he was off the couch and stumbling into the kitchen within seconds of jolting awake.

He made it all the way to the coffee maker before he realized Lisa was awake, too, sitting at the little desk tucked into the corner, her hair twisted up on the back of her head in a messy knot and glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

"More dreams?" She sounded tired and a little flat, which maybe wasn't surprising given that it wasn't much past four in the morning, but Dean didn't think that was all of it.

"New hits every night," he said, shrugging. "What's got you up?" He didn't think she'd fall for it and let him change the subject, but he could at least try.

"Going over the books," she answered. "Again. Like I somehow missed an income-stream somewhere the last five times I did them." She took her glasses off and sighed, rubbing hard at the bridge of her nose. Dean kept himself busy with the coffeemaker, because listening was the least he could do. "We're okay," she said, finally. "Not great, because when the world starts ending, people tend to cancel their yoga classes, but God, somewhere in there, I got responsible. Me, can you believe it? Saving money. Between that and what you've given me, I don't think we're going to be out on the streets."

Dean got down the mugs and reached up high on the top shelf to where Lisa kept her stash of peanut M&amp;Ms. When he'd found them originally, Ben had laughed and told him that she kept them up there because _she's a shrimp and she has to get a chair to get at them, so she only eats them when it's an emergency._

"Sounds like a good reason to go for the good stuff," Dean said, and dropped the bag on the counter.

"It is too sad, that this is as much vice as I've had in a year," Lisa said, half-laughing. and grabbing for the bright yellow bag. "Promise me you don't think I'm boring now."

"Nah," Dean said, pouring the coffee and pushing one mug across the counter. Lisa drank it black and scalding, the way she always had, and she watched him thoughtfully over the the top of her mug.

"I thought they were getting better," she said, and he should have known she wasn't going to let it go that easily. "The dreams."

"Yeah, me too." He tried not to be short, and didn't think he'd done all that good of a job, but she didn't look as though she was offended, so maybe he was okay. "They're not worse, just… different."

She nodded, and then put down her mug and came around the counter, until she was close enough that he could feel her warmth. "I know you're not into yoga or meditation or anything like that, but … may I?" She reached out toward him, slowly, like he might spook--which, given all the shit going on, probably wasn't all that crazy of an idea.

"Yeah," Dean finally managed to whisper, through a throat that was suddenly dry.

Lisa touched people all the time--hugs for Ben, her arms around friends, careful guidance for her students--but she never got close to Dean, not unless he initiated it, not after the first night when she'd brushed a hand across his shoulder and he'd flinched away from it. It was another one of those things they didn't talk about. Now, though--now, she traced her hand along the side of his face and all the air bled out of Dean's lungs at the touch. She got him to sit on one of the bar stools and her hands changed to a light feathering touch.

"This some of your PTSD stuff?" Dean kept his eyes open and locked on hers.

"I thought you probably saw the books," Lisa said, and yeah, he had, a dozen books from the library mixed in with Ben's sports books and DVDs for when the residual crap from all the solar flares knocked the TV stations off the air. "I just--I don't really believe I can make everything better--I know there's no magic wand--but I didn't want to do something stupid because I didn't understand. I don't want to make it worse."

Dean nodded, once, not trusting his voice again, and let her have at it. She talked to him the whole time she had her hands on him--_acupressure point here_ and _breathe for me now and focus on your breath, in and out of your body_ and _okay, center your energy_\--and yeah, definitely not his thing, but he did his best, and she didn't drag things out, and after maybe fifteen minutes, when she stopped, he was at least breathing a little more easily and his shoulders and neck didn't feel quite as knotted up. He wasn't thinking about how his body had felt like a desert in a rainstorm just from being touched, but he thought he might not be quite as much of a freak about it going forward. Maybe.

"Okay," Lisa said, picking up the coffee pot and refilling her mug. Dean waved her off on a refill of his own; maybe cutting back on the gallons of caffeine he routinely downed wasn't such a bad idea. "Now that we've exceeded your New-Age quota for the week, feel free to go change the oil in the cars or chop wood or something."

Dean snorted and knocked back the rest of his coffee, but on his way out the door, he hesitated long enough to say, "It's not worse."

* * *

The granite staircase took to showing up in Dean's dreams at least every other night. After the next few times, Dean tried harder to remember details. Sam had a couple of different shirts that he wore--nothing special, only a couple of ratty tees with a flannel shirt over them--and a old, worn backpack sometimes. The steps were outside, and a couple of times, Dean got glimpses of sculptures on them, enough that he was pretty sure they were animals, maybe lions or something mythological, but definitely not people. It always felt as though it was a big city, even though he never saw anything for sure. At first Dean thought it might be Stanford--though why he'd dream of seeing Sam there, he didn't know--but Sam wasn't the skinny kid who'd gotten on that bus, or even the slightly more grown man Dean had met back up with. Dean was seeing the Sam who'd taken Lucifer back down to Hell, even if most of the time he was sitting with his back braced on the base of a sculpture, reading a book and making notes like half the memories Dean had of him.

Dean expected the dreams to shift--because that was what they'd been doing right from the start--but the only change was that he saw the present-day, unfamiliar Sam more and more often, while the others faded off. His sleep patterns started to ease up, until he was almost always getting a solid six hours a night, which was still pathetic, but considering where he'd started from, it was pretty close to a miracle.

He let Lisa give him a dose of the touchy-feely stuff a couple of times, which helped some, and made her feel better, too, so he counted it as an extra bit of win. The weather kept on being freaky--seriously, snow? In June?--so Ben was inside more than he was out. The tree fort idea was still high on his list of things to do, and Dean had taken him to the library more than once, so he could wait for his turn on the public computers to research plans and designs. Ben was a good kid, and was dealing with all the craziness pretty okay, even in spite of knowing what was really going on and not being able tell anyone. He accepted Dean showing up and not leaving with good grace, and yeah, he'd been cool with Dean before, but that had been a couple of years earlier and kids could change a lot in that time. Lisa had rolled her eyes when Dean said something about it, muttering about how superheroes never went out of style, but Dean was still a little surprised when Ben laid all his sketches and plans out on the kitchen table one morning and asked Dean if he thought they would work.

Dean looked them over seriously, and pointed out a couple of places where he thought they might have some issues. Ben listened and made changes, and then the next morning asked Dean if he could come with them and help them with an old, falling-down shed that they wanted to tear apart for the wood. The way he looked at Dean when he asked, clearly expecting Dean to have more important things to do… well, Dean couldn't say anything other than yes and Ben nearly exploded with excitement. It'd been a long time since anyone had been that happy about being around Dean. It was almost worth hiking through brambles and poison ivy with six pre-teen boys.

Dean checked out the wood and gave a qualified okay for the kids to be using it, with the strict understanding that he would have to approve each individual plank before they put it into the fort itself. Tearing apart the shed was pretty cathartic--anything that got him ripping shit apart had always been good in Dean's book. They dragged as many planks as they could back out to the woods where they were going to build their fort, barely making it home in time for dinner. Ben practically face-planted in his spaghetti and Dean wasn't far behind him.

He dreamed about Sam on the steps three times that night, but every time, he was able to go back to sleep.

* * *

Sam's laptop was still in its case; Dean hadn't been able to make himself touch it, not after Stull. It hardly mattered--Internet connections were pretty spotty, and there wasn't anyone left for Dean to keep in touch with by email anyway. It sat there next to Dean's duffel, until he accidentally kicked it one day and then made himself pick it up and check to make sure it was okay. It booted up fine and wasn't making any weird noises, not that Dean would have known what to do if it had, but he couldn't make himself put it down.

It wasn't only that he had a thousand memories of Sam with the computer, peering at it intently, fingers flying over the keyboard. That was one thing, but then there was the gut punch of all the icons on the desktop, the freaking wallpaper from National Geographic that he'd given Sam shit about (_Seriously, man, the *Alps*? Who puts mountains on their computer?_), and of course, all the nerdy links Sam had strung across the top of his browser. Dean sat and stared at the computer on his lap for long enough that the screensaver kicked in, and even then he stayed where he was and watched the pictures fade into each other. Sam had a ton more from National Geographic: the Eiffel Tower turning into El Capitan turning into a South Pacific beach. He'd given Sam shit about those, too, but then, Sam probably would have hauled him off to a doctor if he hadn't. There was no telling how many pictures Sam had rigged up into the rotation. Dean recognized most of them, but there were a few that were unfamiliar, and he found himself wondering why Sam had grabbed a picture of a desert or whether he'd wanted to visit Prague and Budapest and that was why he'd added their pictures to the group. Before he could get too far down the path of all the other things that they'd never been able to do, dreams that were never going to happen, one last picture flicked onto the screen, granite steps leading up to Greek-looking columns, framed on either side by massive granite lions, and though he'd never seen the picture before and had never even been there, Dean knew the place.

He saw it every night, the steps that Sam walked down and the statues he sat nest to in Dean's dreams. It faded off the screen, replaced by a bird in a jungle somewhere and Dean fumbled with the keyboard, his hands almost shaking as he typed out the password and started hunting for wherever Sam stashed the pictures the screensaver used. He told himself it was nothing, that he must have seen the picture before and his subconscious was working through losing Sam in whatever way it could, but that didn't stop him from clicking almost frantically through folders and files and sub-folders and _more_ files, because his brother was an organizational freak who couldn't just dump everything on his desktop and be done with it.

Dean ended up going through twenty different folders, opening file after file, but he found the picture finally, and took back everything nasty he'd thought about Sam being anal, because his freakishness extended to precise names for every damn thing he downloaded, so now Dean didn't just know that place in his dreams was a real place, he knew it was the Schwartzman Building of the New York Public Library, and if Sam's thing was being organized, Dean's thing was having a map of pretty much the entire country in his head, so he already knew how to get there.

* * *

Dean had stopped asking Lisa what she needed done before he'd even reached the end of her first list; at that point he'd started doing whatever he thought was necessary. Now, though, he looked over the house and property with new purpose. He'd already carved sigils and wards around the exterior doors and windows, filling them in with wood putty mixed with salt and sanding them smooth before he'd repainted, so they were good there even if everything didn't stay quiet on the demonic front. There were still practical matters to deal with, though. He went over the doors and windows again with an eagle eye, puttying every seam and join twice, sealing them up as tight as he could. He'd laid in about a half a cord of split logs, but he worked his way through another full cord, so even if the weather took a while to recover from all the shit Lucifer and Michael had laid on it, Lisa would have enough to keep the house warm for a long time. Lisa didn't say anything, only leaving out antibiotic ointment and extra band aids for how he was tearing up his hands, and sending Ben out every night to help stack the day's logs neatly along the inside walls of the garage.

Dean made extra time to help Ben with the tree fort, okaying all the wood the kids were using and lending an extra bit of muscle as they hauled the boards up. Everything else, he let them do on their own. So far, the worst they'd dealt with was a couple of thumbnails that were going to fall off after getting nailed with the hammer and a minor cut when somebody cut through a board and into his thigh. Gory, but not so deep that it needed anything but a couple of butterflies. Dean thought they were doing pretty good.

"You're leaving," Lisa said, crouching down to look into the cabinet Dean was half-in, half-out of in as he fixed the slow drip in the master bathroom. She didn't laugh when he nearly levitated off the floor and into the pipe, only handed him a wrench and sat back watched. He couldn't tell anything from her voice, whether she was pissed or relieved or what.

"I need to check something out," Dean finally said, using a little more torque than was probably necessary to tighten the pipe-fitting. He'd been having the argument with himself from the second he'd seen the picture, but that was what it was coming down to. He couldn't not go.

"And you don't think you'll be back," Lisa finished for him, and whoa, pissed. Definitely pissed. "And I mean that in a you don't think you'll live sort of way, not in a you think you might find a better offer one."

"I can't count on it," Dean said. She edged back enough to let him slide out, and they sat there on the bathroom floor, all the crap that had been under the sink, nail polish and cotton balls and bath salts and a million other pieces of female paraphernalia spread around them. "I'm not looking to check out--I'm _not_, okay? I mean, yeah, it was a pretty thin line at first, but… "

"That's not what this is." Dean said it as firmly as he could, because, yeah, that'd crossed his mind more than once, too. "But I'm not sure what I might be walking into and I need to do as much here as I can." He started gathering up all the crap he'd dumped on the floor, but Lisa waved him off.

"Leave it," she said. "I should go through it and get rid of the junk I'll never use."

"Okay," Dean answered, hauling himself to his feet. "I think that's the last thing I need to take care of inside."

"Dean--" Lisa shook her head, her hair spilling down across her shoulder and hiding her face. Dean wanted to tell her he'd be okay, but they both knew he had no guarantees on anything.

"Hey, at least your reputation won't be trashed," Dean said. "Once I'm gone, they'll all forget about--" Lisa's head whipped up at that, pure fury on her face, enough that Dean was surprised that she didn't slap him as she rolled to her feet in one quick, graceful motion.

"You did not just say that to me," Lisa said, her voice shaking. "You did _not_ just say that I give a flying fuck what the hypocrites at the PTA think; that, that I care about it more than I care about your _life_."

She pushed past him and out into the hall, the front door slamming hard enough to rattle picture frames a few seconds later. There were days, Dean thought, that he really shouldn't be allowed to open his mouth.

* * *

Dinner was quiet, which wasn't much of a surprise. Ben caught on quickly that something was wrong, looking at Dean a little anxiously; Dean nodded and shrugged and murmured, "I screwed up, buddy," when Lisa's back was turned.

"Full-on Hulk?" Ben asked in a whisper, and when Dean nodded, he made a sympathetic face and carried the conversation like it was no big deal. He skipped out pretty quick once he'd inhaled his four plates of macaroni and cheese, though. Dean sat and watched Lisa push macaroni shells around on her plate for as long as he could take it, but when he started to help her clean up, she sighed and waved him off.

"I'm fine," she said. "This--I'm fine." It didn't take Dean being an expert in denial to see the holes in that, but he let it be.

"What do you want me to tell Ben?" Dean asked.

"The truth," Lisa said, quietly, but at least she was looking at Dean again. "He'll understand."

"I'll talk to him tomorrow," Dean said, and there didn't seem to be anything else to say after Lisa nodded, so he left. He only went as far as the living room, though, and once she'd gotten Ben settled for the night, she came and joined him.

"Look, if things go to hell, this is where you two need to be," Dean said. "Not just my kind of shit--physical stuff, too. You've got the fireplace in here and you can shut off the rest of the house, keep it warm. Bathroom right down the hall, and the kitchen should be okay, too. Might get a little cold, but cook in there unless the gas goes. Then you can work with the fire--that heavy aluminum stuff you've got will do fine over an open flame--"

"Dean," Lisa said. "We'll be fine, better than most people."

"--and goddamnit, I should have been teaching Ben how to handle a gun, not fucking around building treehouses with him--"

"_Dean_." Lisa had the voice he'd heard her use maybe once on Ben, the one that said _my turn to talk_. He swallowed down the rest of words that were spilling out--it wasn't as though they were anything useful anyway--and took a deep breath.

"Do you really want to talk to me about Ben and guns?" Lisa said, with a hard look that Dean met head-on, because like it or not, from what Dean could see from the bits of stuff filtering through the news, knowing what to do with a gun was looking to be a handy life skill in these times. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. "Putting that aside," she said, more quietly. "We'll be fine."

Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, and he was, but he was leaving them anyway.. "I shouldn't--"

Lisa hushed him, one hand gentle on his mouth. "No 'shoulds,'" she said. "I'm glad you came--glad you felt you _could_ come, but you don't owe me anything. You never have."

"Yeah," Dean said, after a bit. "I do." He wasn't stupid enough to think she missed all the empties he filled her trash cans with, especially the first month or so, and the nightmares were never a secret--the more he thought about it, the more he wondered why she'd let him stick around long enough to clean up his act.

"A couch and some not-very-good vegetarian cooking?" Lisa had a pretty smile, but its real beauty came from her eyes. "You're always welcome to that."

"You know that's not what I'm talking about--" Dean started, his voice rough and almost shaky.

"I know," Lisa said, leaning up to press her mouth against Dean's, quick and soft, but not at all sweet. "And you know that's not what _I'm_ talking about."

Lisa traced the back of her hand along the edge of Dean's jaw, like she did when she'd had enough of his shell-shocked routine and gave him a dose of the New Age stuff, except not. When she touched him like that, it was careful and sure; this was feather-light, electric, and Dean could feel her hand tremble against him. When she started to draw away, Dean couldn't not follow, couldn't help turning his head into the touch.

"Yes?" Lisa's eyes were wide and dark in the low light, but she pressed her palm to the curve of his jaw, moving closer when Dean caught his breath

"You sure?" he whispered.

"Very," she whispered back, and he caught her wrist in one hand and brought her fingers back to where he could press his mouth across the tips, trace a path down to her palm, end at the thin, soft skin on the inside of her wrist. Her pulse beat fast and strong against his lips, and it probably shouldn't have pleased him as much as it did, but it had been a long time since he'd cared like that. "Very, very sure," she murmured, and took him upstairs to her room.

* * *

The weather was still pretty freaky, bouncing between normal summer weather and cold snaps that were playing hell with the farmers. Dean didn't think there'd been a hard freeze, not even when it had snowed early in June, but he was still glad he'd talked Lisa into spending a couple of days stocking up on canned goods. He'd converted what had been a utility closet into a storage pantry and it was crammed full of every vegetable they could get their hands on. She'd drawn the line at beef jerky, though.

As cool as it was in the morning, it was clear and bright, high clouds blowing across the sky as Dean poured himself a cup of coffee and stared out the window. Lisa had murmured quietly when he'd eased out of bed, but she hadn't stopped him, and when Dean had gotten out of the shower, as quick as it was, she was back asleep, the sheet low on her hips. Dean had pulled the sheet and blanket back up over her, watching as his hand trailed over her skin as though he hadn't spent the night wrapped up in her.

Dean ran through the list of things he still had to do, double-check the transmission fluid, stockpile a couple of cans of gas in case it was as bad as he thought it might be out on the road, lay in a supply of the beef jerky Lisa had rolled her eyes over. Most importantly, he had to talk to Ben.

As if he knew something was up, Ben stayed gone all day, sliding out before Dean even knew he was awake and not even coming home for lunch. A part of Dean was happy for any reason to put off telling Ben he was leaving, but the rest of him was getting more and more wired the longer he had to wait. Lisa stuck her head in the garage to tell Dean she was leaving for the studio; he nearly tore a hole in a radiator hose just from someone calling his name.

He finally ran Ben to ground late in the afternoon, right as he came trudging down the street, part of a little pack of kids, one after the other peeling off as they passed each house.

"Hey, buddy, got a second?" Dean called, and Ben veered off toward where Dean was leaning against the garage wall.

"Sure," Ben said, and Dean steeled himself for the conversation. "What's up? Mom still mad?"

"Uh, well…" Dean started to say they'd worked it out, but first off, it kinda sounded sleazy, what with everything that had gone on the night before; and then, on top of that, Dean was pretty sure she'd have the same reaction if he was stupid enough to say the same thing again, so he just shrugged. "As long as I'm not an idiot again, we'll be good."

Ben grinned. "She can be kinda touchy sometimes."

"Dude," Dean said, shaking his head. "They all can be. But most of them aren't as cool as your mom, so keep that in mind."

"Sure," Ben agreed. "She is pretty awesome. Most of the time."

"Yeah, so," Dean took a deep breath. "Listen, man--I'm gonna need to take off here soon." It was best to say outright, be honest; Dean knew that, but it still didn't make it easier to watch the smile fade off the kid's face.

"Yeah, sure," Ben said quietly. "I mean, yeah, you've got stuff you have to do. Sure." He studied the ground. "It's not 'cause of Mom, is it? I mean, yeah, she can be--"

"No!" Dean said, kicking himself for not seeing that coming and heading it off before it even crossed Ben's mind. "_No_. Nothing to do with that, I swear." Ben nodded, but he still wasn't looking at Dean, and Dean sighed. "Your mom--she's not real happy about me leaving. That's what the whole thing was about."

"She's worried about you." Ben looked up at that and Dean half-shrugged.

"Yeah… and that's not really something that I'm used to."

"It's not 'cause she thinks you're dumb or can't take care of yourself," Ben said, with a serious, earnest expression that was Lisa in miniature. "It's 'cause she cares about you."

Dean fought to keep a straight face. "I know, man. It's still kinda strange."

It got quiet again, but at least Ben wasn't in complete avoidance mode, and, when Lisa pulled into the driveway and announced that they'd better come help if they wanted dinner, he turned to Dean and said, "I'm gonna miss you."

"Me too, buddy," Dean answered. "Me too."

* * *

Dean would have bet anything that dinner was going to be a nightmare, but Lisa declared it to be Free-For-All Night, at which point Ben whooped and dove for the pantry, coming back up with jars of marshmallow fluff and Nutella, and a giant squeeze bottle of strawberry syrup.

"I didn't think you let crap like that in the house," Dean said under his breath to Lisa as Ben started assembling a gooey, sticky sandwich, adding the marshmallow fluff with a spoon big enough to be a ladle.

"Whole wheat bread," Lisa murmured back. "It's not a total disaster. Besides, it's only for extra-special occasions when Mom does not want to deal."

Dean watched with what started out as amusement as she put together her own sandwich, but by the time she finished it was peanut butter and banana with mayo and lettuce, and Dean was leaning toward outright horror.

"And Sam thought I fed him weird shit growing up," Dean muttered, and stopped dead, because that was the first time he'd said Sam's name, actually said it out loud since it'd all gone down, and it wasn't tearing him up inside. Lisa's smile said that she got it, but she didn't say anything, only pushed the loaf of bread toward him.

Dean took a deep breath and surveyed the options. He ended up going with your classic peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, three of them, washed down with the strawberry milk Ben was making, almost more syrup than milk, so full of red dye it was nearly glowing. Lisa contributed apples, which Ben promptly dunked in caramel goo, and for dessert there was something she called S'more S'prise, which turned out to be smashed up graham crackers and _more_ marshmallow fluff dumped into a bowl, with a handful of chocolate chips thrown on top before it got microwaved.

"That is… truly disgusting-looking," Dean said, with no small amount of admiration.

"I never was much of a Girl Scout." Lisa smiled and handed him a spoon.

* * *

Once he'd said goodnight to Ben--promising not to leave before breakfast the next morning--Dean rounded up all the crap he'd scattered around and packed, the old USMC duffel battered and stained but still as familiar as the Impala.

"That didn't take long," Lisa said, from the door. Dean managed not to jump; it was quiet in the house, but Lisa could give stealth lessons to a ninja when she wanted. She nodded at the duffel. "Is that everything?"

"Spent my whole life living out of one bag," Dean said. "Guess I'm too old to change now."

"Does that apply to everything?" Lisa asked. "You've spent your whole life leaving, too. Are you too old to change that?"

"Probably," Dean admitted. "It's better that--"

"Don't," Lisa said, crossing the room in quick, purposeful steps. "You can tell me that that's how it is, but don't tell me it's better that way." She didn't stop or slow down until she crashed into him, and he only barely managed to keep his balance enough that they ended up on the couch and not on the floor. "Don't tell yourself that either," she said, fiercely.

"I don't want to fight with you…" Dean started.

"Then don't," she shot back, and then sighed. "I can hear that 'but' at the end of your sentence."

"I don't want to lie to you either," Dean said, which was true, but not something he'd ever admitted before, to anyone.

"I'm good with that, too," Lisa said, and then smiled. "Okay, compromise. Don't tell me and we work on the not telling yourself. Deal?"

"Deal," Dean said, a little shocked that it didn't feel like he was saying it just to be saying it. Lisa was watching him with one eyebrow arched, as though she was waiting for a smart remark or a joke, but Dean honestly didn't feel the need. Instead, he found himself brushing the hair back from her face with long slow strokes, her hair heavy and smooth against his skin. She relaxed against him with a little sigh and low hum. "You gonna start purring?" Dean asked, amused.

"Possibly," Lisa answered, not opening her eyes. "You're not planning on stopping any time soon, are you?"

"No, ma'am," Dean said, and the silence that fell after that was easier than anything Dean could remember for a long time. "It's Sam," he said, after a while. "I don't know what's going on--I mean, there's a pretty good chance I've lost it completely."

"Doubt it," Lisa murmured.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I'm not so sure," Dean said. "I have to check it out, though."

"'kay." Lisa nodded into his shoulder. "Doesn't mean you can't ever come back."

Dean was quiet for a long time--too many things in his head that he had no idea how to say--but finally nodded, too. "Thanks," he said. "I--thanks."

"You're welcome," Lisa said, and maybe Dean was kidding himself, but he thought that she got some of the crap he couldn't figure out how to say. She sat up and gestured toward the fireplace. "And not to ruin the mood here, but maybe you could show me how to build a real fire? All I ever do is buy those fake logs from the grocery store and I don't think they're going to cut it if I really need to keep us warm."

"See?" Dean said, running his hand through her hair one last time and hauling himself to his feet. "You should have been paying attention in Girl Scouts after all."

"Oh, there were lots of things I was doing instead of selling cookies and camping," Lisa said, standing up and stretching her arms up over her head to loosen her back before she dropped down and put her palms on the floor. "Be nice, or you won't get any kind of demonstration."

"I can be nice," Dean said, and went to bring in some wood.

* * *

Ben was quiet in the morning, but it was a thoughtful quiet rather than a sulk. He watched Dean seriously all through breakfast, until Dean finally bought a clue and asked him to come help pack up the Impala. Dean got him to check through the first aid kit while Dean pretended to be re-arranging stuff in the trunk, and let the silence settle into something comfortable.

"Everything checking out?" Dean asked. "Tell me if I missed anything--"

"Everything's really weird now, and…" Except for one quick, nervous glance, Ben didn't look up from the checklist he held. "I know everybody says the earthquakes and stuff are over but--"

He stopped just as suddenly as he'd started, and Dean slammed the trunk shut and came over and sat down next to him.

"I think everything is over," Dean said. Ben nodded, but still didn't look up. "I'm not blowing you off, okay? Stuff's still going to be weird for a while, I guess, but not like it was."

"Mom says you know what you're doing and how to take care of yourself," Ben said. "But that was before, and everything's different now."

"Yeah," Dean sighed. "It is. But a lot of it's because the stuff I used to take care of came up to the surface. It got a little bad, but mostly it's still the same, and I've been doing it all my life." He took the first aid kit from Ben and tucked it under the front seat of the car. "I know the phones are a mess these days, but I'll try to call, okay?"

"That'd be good," Ben said, nodding. He took a deep breath and his voice was almost steady when he added, "Mom'll like that."

Dean remembered saying good-bye to his dad, a hundred different times when _Sammy likes it when you call_ masked a hundred fears of Dean's own. Dad had known, of course, but they always played it like he hadn't, like Dean was only asking for Sam, and life probably wouldn't have happened any differently if they hadn't kept pretending, but that didn't mean Dean had to do it the exact same way.

"Me, too," Dean said. "It'll be good to talk to you, hear what's going on here."

"Yeah?" Ben shot him a look, as though Dean couldn't possibly mean it, but relaxed when Dean didn't take it back. "Yeah, it'll be cool."

* * *

Back in the day, Dean could have made the 700 or so miles through to New York in one hard push. If he had anyone to switch off driving, they could make it in ten or eleven hours. Nine, if it was summer and his dad on the other shift.

He wasn't counting on anything like that now, though from everything he could tell, the real damage from Lucifer had happened further west. He nearly flipped a coin about which route to take, but finally decided to go with I-70. It shaded a little bit further south through Pennsylvania, and he figured south was better, what with not having any idea what the weather was going to do. The first couple of hours were okay, and he was making good time, but somewhere in Ohio he caught sight of a low bank of clouds, dark and turbulent, like a cloud of demons. He watched it blow up behind him, gaining on him steadily, until the first sharp ping of hail sounded on the roof. He drove a little further, but the hail got bigger and the darkest part of the cloud was still coming, so he pulled off under an overpass and let the worst of it blow through. He sat there, the car comfortable and familiar around him, while the full fury of the storm howled outside, and finally admitted he didn't have the first fucking clue what he was doing.

Chasing after a dream--even one as vivid as this--was nuts, and that was before you added in the whole part about it fitting so neatly with everything he couldn't even bring himself to hope for. Every demon out there with an axe to grind against the Winchesters--and hell, every angel, too--had to know it'd be the perfect bait to draw Dean out. Dean didn't want to think about what Bobby would have to say about it.

Not that any of that mattered, of course. Dean was going anyway. But he was going to try to take it at something other than a bull-headed rush, even if he didn't have much of a plan other than find the steps and wait for Sam. The hail eased off after a little while, but not before it completely covered the highway; the rains that followed were heavy, with pretty fucking spectacular lightning to go along with it all. Dean ended up spending almost an hour under cover, and then drove through the shredded countryside, following in the wake of the storm until he hit Pennsylvania. It wasn't quite dark, but he stopped anyway, at a little motor court right off the exit. There was a bait and tackle shop near it that sold sandwiches and chips; Dean got himself a roast beef and cheddar and a bottle of water, and settled in for the night.

The weather had stayed clear enough that opening the window in the tiny bathroom wasn't a bad idea. The window faced the back, away from the road, so the night sounds of the mostly wooded lot filtered in to the rest of the room along with air that smelled fresh and clean. The kid at the front desk had shrugged when Dean had asked about TV and radio, but Dean had pretty much expected that and just lay down under the scratchy sheets once he finished eating.

He expected the dream, too. It was sharper, more defined, but still the same basics: Sam and the steps and a book, and Dean came awake muttering, "Boring, Sammy. Very, very boring."

He fumbled around and found a pen, and wrote everything he could remember on a random blank page in the journal, like it was any other case and he needed to get as much information as possible down before it slipped away. Sam never acknowledged anyone, never spoke or even made eye contact. From the shadows and the general look of the people who were there in the background, Dean was guessing it was late afternoon. He hadn't actually thought about it before, but the light and shade were always like that. Sam looked relatively healthy and sane; Dean thought that ruled out most of the angels and demons carrying a grudge--they surely would have put Sam in danger if they really wanted Dean to get moving. Instead, he was getting Technicolor pictures of Sam sitting and reading; and somewhere along the way, Dean had gotten enough equilibrium back that he didn't automatically think being sort of grateful for the normality of the scene was an invitation for disaster.

It was still pretty boring, though.

The weather held throughout the night and into the morning; the bait shop was open for the early morning crowd hitting the river. Dean hadn't expected much, maybe stale donuts or even a ham sandwich left over from the day before, but the woman who owned the place was making breakfast burritos, with real eggs and honest-to-God bacon. Dean's taste buds nearly fell over in shock and awe. He hadn't given a damn what he was eating for a long time, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be picky about whatever Lisa was putting in front of him, but it'd been a long time, and his body had apparently been in some kind of bacon withdrawal to judge from _holyfuckYES_ that he all but moaned at the first bite.

He ate one entire burrito standing in line waiting to pay, burning his mouth on the hot bacon and cheese, and ended up getting another one for the road. That one, he took his time with, eating one handed and chasing every bite with the industrial strength coffee he'd added to his order. The sun was out, the sky was clear, the Impala was purring under his hands. Dean wasn't at all surprised that everything went downhill from there.

The roads were crap, which seriously messed with his goal of getting across the damn state before he stopped, and when he gave up on that idea and started looking for someplace to fill up and maybe find some food, he ended up ten miles off the interstate, passing one closed-down place after another. In the end, he used some of the gas he'd stockpiled, and settled for a couple of the beef jerkies to keep him going. After the awesome start to the day, it was fairly unimpressive, but not a disaster.

The rest of the day carried on the same way: bad roads, like the DOT hadn't gotten around to filling the potholes left over from the extended winter, and place after place boarded-up and closed. The only good thing was that when Dean finally did stop, and asked about everything, asking without asking about any weird shit that might have happened, the old guy behind the check-in desk went off on a monologue that blamed everyone from the thieving bastards at the county offices on up to them jerks in Washington, but nothing that he said--and goddamn, he just would _not_ shut up--pinged Dean's radar. Maybe the weather was still screwed up from Lucifer but everything else was looking to be collateral damage from the economy.

Dean left the guy still mumbling and muttering and went to find his room. He managed to get a shower and about an hour of bad reception on the TV, including some local news that confirmed what the old guy had said. Nothing more than the never-ending recession and Wall Street tricks at work. He flipped off the TV and crashed out for the night, lying awake for a long time wondering if the dream would come again.

He woke right before dawn with no memory of having seen Sam and hit the road, swallowing down the disappointment and determined to make it to Manhattan before another night passed. He had no idea how often Sam went by the library, or, hell, if this was even real, but he was tired of only getting glimpses. If he got there and didn't find anything and it was all nothing more than part of his fucked-up brain, well, then he'd deal with that. But first he wanted to see for himself.

At least he couldn't brood about it much--not that that was what he was doing, brooding was way more Sam's thing--not what with how he had to pay attention to where he was driving. He had no desire to miss an exit or a bridge or whatever the hell else New York had in store for him and blow his chance at catching Sam for the day.

Manhattan looked… okay. Dean hadn't ever spent a lot of time there; he had no idea what was baseline, but there were a shit-ton of people out, walking, gawking, buying stuff, and that was generally a good sign, at least in Dean's book. He only got lost once--one-way streets sucked--and then it took him a good hour to find someplace to park the car. He wasn't thinking about how much it cost, either. After all that, it was starting to get to the point that Dean wanted to _be there_, settle himself at the base of the statues he'd seen a dozen times in his dreams and find out just how fucking crazy he really was. He grabbed a handful of jerky and his EMT-meter and set off to find his way back on foot.

He knew he should be paying attention to his surroundings--that was Rule Number One of taking on unknown things and making it back out alive, or at least breathing--but it was like the dream. Everything around him, the people, the buildings, the taxis and their never-quiet horns, all faded into the background. He came up on the building from the rear; it was a long, long walk to get up to the front and around the corner to the steps. He told himself to settle down, keep cool, but as soon as he saw the lions, exactly the same as in the dreams, he broke into a jog, like Sam was going to be there waiting for him.

He wasn't, of course.

Dean circled around the statues, first the one on the right, then the left, and then stopped himself from doing it again. He leaned against the stone base and got a grip. He made himself think of every time he'd seen this place, thought about the angles and the way the sun slanted along the street, along the concrete and on the building and decided he should be staking out the cat on the right. He'd keep an eye on them both, but he was going to sit his ass down and lean against the right-hand statue and wait until the damn library closed, if he had to.

He compromised with the nervous energy ricocheting through his body and stood rather than sat, but otherwise he followed the plan, lame as it was. People went by steadily, on the steps and sidewalk; the shadows crept closer. Waiting around was never Dean's favorite part of anything, equal parts boring and nerve-wracking. He'd done it all his life, it seemed--waiting for Dad to get home, for the moon to be full, for Castiel to show, for Lucifer to make his move. He'd never actually gotten used to it, or gotten very good at it, but he hung on grimly through the afternoon, until the sun was blocked by the other buildings and it'd be too dark for Sam to do his standard show-up-and-read. Right when Dean was telling himself the day was shot, though, that he needed to give it up for the day and go figure out someplace to stay, a final group came out of the big doors at the top of the steps and Dean was face-to-face with Sam.

Dean froze, and with the tiny part of his brain still working listened for the scream of the EMT meter. It was silent, though, and the rest of the world trickled back in as Sam stared back at him, standing close enough that Dean could see the flecks of green in his eyes. The moment stretched out, on and on, neither one of them moving--hell, Dean wasn't sure either of them was _breathing_\--until Sam reached out and grabbed Dean's shirt, shoving him back against the stone behind him and snarling, "Who _are_ you?"

Dean gaped at him, and Sam's hands tightened in the cloth. "What do you want with me?" He shook Dean once, which was about enough of _that_. Dean twisted left and broke Sam's grip on him, turning back in time to see him ready to bolt.

"Sam--" Dean started, and took a step back at the hunted, _haunted_ look in Sam's eyes. "Whoa, whoa, Sammy, it's--"

Sam choked out a laugh that sounded more like cut glass and sat on the steps, going down as though his legs wouldn't hold him up any more. Dean watched for a second, then sat next to him. Whatever the fuck was going on, it wasn't like he was going to leave, not now.

Sam reached out slowly--Dean wasn't getting any crazy vibes off him, so he didn't duck, just sat and waited--and touched Dean's face, ran his thumb over Dean's cheekbone and down along his jaw. Dean had a quick flash of how much damage Sam could do, and how stupid it was for Dean to let him anywhere close to his throat, let alone his eye, but Sam didn't do anything, only took a shaky breath and dropped his hand back in his lap.

"You're real," Sam said, after a couple of seconds. Dean wanted to say that of course he was real--_he_ wasn't the one who'd taken a dive into Hell this time, but Sam was still talking. "I dream about you every night, and I don't--I don't know--"

"Easy," Dean said, and took a shaky breath of his own, because he'd thought of a lot of bad shit, but this scenario hadn't even begun to occur to him. "If it helps, I dream about you every night, too."

Sam's head jerked up at that. "_Why?_" he demanded, and there was fear under the frustration, Dean could hear it plain as day, and he maybe reacted to it a little too strongly.

"_Why?_" he snapped. "Why the hell do you think?"

"I don't know," Sam bit off, in full-on bitch mode. "I don't know anything. I don't know you. Hell," he said, standing up. "I don't know _me_." He rubbed one hand over his face, and it was so familiar to Dean, so _Sam_ it hurt to see. "Look, I have to go, get to work. Sorry about slamming you into the wall."

"Damn it, Sam," Dean said, jumping up and making a grab for him. Sam's arm was solid and strong under his hand, tense, one shrug away from a punch.

"Sam," Sam said, laughing again. It didn't sound any better than it had before, but at least he wasn't walking away. "Yeah, that's what I tell people to call me. You want to know why?"

"Because it's your name?"

"Is it?" Sam shrugged. "People want to know what to call you. It starts freaking them out if they can't put a name with the face after awhile, and I--didn't know. But every night, I'd go to sleep and dream and you'd call me Sam. So I figured, why not? It's as good a name as any, right?"

Dean reached up--slowly, because he didn't want to lose an arm, thanks--and turned Sam's face back toward him. Sam let him, all of the fight draining out of him at the touch of Dean's hand. He met Dean's eyes, and shrugged again, sort of rueful, sort of helpless, but not scamming Dean. Dean would bet anything on that, which meant that the Winchester luck was running true. Dean would still take this over having Sam in Hell, though. In a heartbeat. He just had to hang on to Sam until they could figure shit out.

"I really do have to go," Sam said. "They'll fire my ass in a heartbeat and I need the money." It was pretty clear that he expected Dean to let him go--and that he'd be happy to force the issue if he had to--but then he added, "You could--it's a dive, but if you wanted to come--"

"Yeah," Dean said, relief flooding through him. "I do."

He let go then, and Sam slung his backpack over one shoulder, heading down the steps and across the street to more stairs leading down to the subway. Dean fumbled with the money he needed for the metrocard, but Sam waited for him. It was crowded and noisy on the train, but they found a couple of straps to hold onto, Sam nudging him when it was time to get off.

"It's nothing great," Sam said, as he wove through the people on the sidewalk. "They pay me in cash, though."

"Never a bad thing," Dean said, and Sam nodded.

The place Sam finally took them into was actually classier than Dean expected, but it was still a dive strip club. Sam took him in through the kitchen, nodding to a couple of the guys washing dishes and prepping stuff, and then ducked into a tiny room lined with lockers. He pulled a padlock out of his backpack before he stripped off the loose, long-sleeved overshirt he wore, stuffing it and the pack in a locker. The t-shirt he still had on was black, but tight; as far as Dean could tell, he hadn't lost any weight or muscle mass, which at least meant he was taking care of himself even if they were dealing with some freaky amnesia B.S.

"I started off washing dishes," Sam said, picking up a Louisville Slugger that was leaning against the wall and leading Dean back through the kitchen and out into the front of the club. "But… I can handle myself in a fight, so they stuck me out here."

'Out here' was behind a pretty basic bar--couple of beers on tap and as sad a collection of bottles as Dean had seen in a while. Sam propped the bat next to the small sink and watched Dean take it all in with an expression that was more than a little defensive, as though he was waiting for Dean to run him down. And yeah, it was nothing great, but truth be told, Dean had put in time at worse places, and that was knowing who the hell he was to start with, so he just smiled.

"Yeah," he said, ducking under the bar and taking the last stool at the end, where he had the wall at one shoulder. "You can handle yourself just fine in a fight. Wouldn't want anybody else on my six."

Sam rolled his eyes--some things never changed, Dean guessed--and went to get set up for his shift, making sure the dude getting off was square with the books and wasn't leaving Sam holding the bag. Dean approved; you could never be too careful, and it was good Sam knew that, too. Dean sprang for a beer--out of a bottle, thanks, because he'd seen the dishwashing set-up in the back and it was pretty clear that the money in this joint went to paying off health inspectors rather than investing in anything that'd actually get the glasses clean--and settled in to keeping an eye on Sam.

Sam pulled beers and handed out shots, everything pretty quiet, at least for a strip joint where the bass lines were loud enough that Dean could feel them. Other than acknowledging orders and nodding thanks for tips, Sam didn't engage with anyone unless they were on the way to being trouble, and then it was nothing more than a flat, even stare that said the muscles and the bat weren't for show and it would really piss Sam off to have to prove it. Even the blotto ones managed to interpret it correctly, at least until one moron, the kind who thought wearing a suit and flashing some cash meant that he was special, kept right on going, pawing at the waitresses. Sam leaned over the bar casually, hooking one long arm around the moron's neck and dragging him back hard against the edge, hard enough that Dean almost winced in sympathy.

"No touching," Sam said, the muscles in his arm tightening against the guy's throat. Sam held him there long enough that any normal idiot would have been happy to still be breathing once he got let go, but this guy was a real charmer. Even with a bouncer on his way over from the door, as soon as Sam eased back, Dipshit staggered around and pulled a switchblade out from under his nice, fancy suit.

"Sam," Dean called, already on his feet and moving. "Knife, watch it, watch it--" Sam dodged back out of the way of the first wild slash, and Dean got there before the guy could try again, jamming a knee hard up into his back and shoving him face first onto the bar. Sam slammed the bat down a half-second later, shattering a glass not all that far from the guy's face. There wasn't any blood, so Dean didn't guess the guy had lost an eye, but he'd be picking glass shards out of his hair for a week.

"Show me the blade," Sam growled, soft and dangerous, pushing the bat against the guy's face. "Show it to me." Dipshit couldn't get the knife up on the bar fast enough; Dean didn't blame him--the hair on the back of Dean's neck was nearly standing on end and Sam wasn't even talking to him. The bouncer--who had a couple of inches and probably fifty pounds on Sam--finally made it over, and Dean was more than happy to let go and step back.

"Nice," the bouncer said, pulling the guy up by his hair. "I was startin' to get bored." He manhandled the guy over toward the door, turning back to ask Sam, "You want to press charges?"

"Nah," Sam answered, raking his hair back off his face. "He didn't touch me. Just, uh, don't let him in again?"

"Yeah," the bouncer said, grinning as he shoved the guy out the door, making sure his head clipped the frame. "I might provide a little positive reinforcement on that idea."

Dean shook his head; when he turned back, Sam was watching him again. "I told you it was a dive," Sam said, and Dean shrugged. "Thanks," Sam added. "First time I've had somebody covering my back here."

"Anytime." Dean thought he sounded casual enough, like the thought of Sam having to deal by himself wasn't making him want to grab the bat Sam still held and do a little damage of his own. He eased back onto his bar stool and gestured toward the cooler. "If batting practice is over, I could use another Bud."

Sam snorted and tossed the bat back in its corner. "On the house," he said, sliding the longneck down to Dean, and the night went back to being boring.

* * *

Sam got off at three in the morning; the place was never packed but it had steady business through the night with a lot of turnover. Dean had watched Sam pull in solid money in tips, plus whatever was in the envelope the guy who ran the place handed off as Sam finished up. Sam didn't say anything, but he didn't object to Dean following him back through to the break room, which was good because Dean didn't think he could let Sam go and he wasn't in the mood to fight about it. He stood around while Sam collected his stuff and shrugged when Sam asked him if he wanted anything to eat.

"As long as it's somewhere else," Dean said, since it was only them in the break room. "Nothing personal, but, dude. Please tell me you don't eat here."

"Once," Sam answered, with a hint of a smile. "But it was an extreme situation. After that, I started keeping an emergency stash in here." He lifted the backpack.

"You always were the smart one," Dean said, without thinking, and then felt like beating his head against the wall at how stiff Sam's shoulders had gone. "Yeah, so we should probably talk about that," Dean sighed.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, but the look on his face was the same he used to shut down the freaks, so Dean wasn't holding out much hope that it was gonna be an easy conversation. Then again, he was _having_ the conversation, which he'd take over Sam being in Hell any day.

Sam took him back out through the alley and down a couple of different streets that all looked more-or-less the same. Dean honestly had no idea where he was, much less how to get back to his car, so he though he should try to focus on not pissing Sam off too much. They finally ended up at small diner, nothing much more than a couple of booths and some stools at a counter, but the guy at the grill greeted Sam like a regular and Dean could see a cake plate with some pastries sitting out a little further down. Maybe they'd have pie.

The back booth was empty, so they slid in there and killed a couple of minutes studying the menu. Or, at least Dean did--Sam just glanced at it, and ordered by number when the waitress came over to take their orders. Dean couldn't help looking back to see what Sam had gotten.

"Souvlaki?" Dean asked. "Really?"

"I don't know what I like," Sam said, still with that shut-down expression. "I'm just going through the menu."

It was so Sam, Dean had to laugh, but--remembering a couple of years worth of stubborn battles between Dad and a Sam who knew exactly what he wanted to eat and was happy to go hungry if that wasn't on the menu--had to add, "How's that working out for you?"

"No liver of any kind is ever going in my mouth again," Sam said, relaxing a little. "But other than that, it's been okay." The waitress circled back with coffee; once she'd left again, Sam took a deep breath and said, very quietly, "So, the dreams."

"Yeah," Dean answered, just as low.

"I've never not had them, not one night." Sam fumbled in his backpack, finally pulling out a small, cheap composition book and pushing it toward Dean. "You're almost always in them, but there are other people, too."

Dean flipped through the notebook, reading quickly. Every other page or so, Sam had the outlines of a dream written down. He didn't know who anyone was or where things had happened, but he'd written out perfect, snapshot descriptions of everything and everyone. Dean recognized hunts mixed in with fishing trips with Pastor Jim when they were kids; descriptions of Bobby's junkyard on one page and Stanford on the next; Jessica and Ruby, Bobby and Dad; and Dean, almost always there somewhere, even if it was only Sam writing that Dean wasn't in a particular dream. Some of them, Sam had had more than once, from the different pens and pencils he'd used to fill in details. Some had only a couple of words under them--_vampires??_ or _cage_\--while others had pages of notes, things Sam had seen, how he'd felt in the dream, how he'd reacted once he'd woken.

Dean looked up to find Sam watching him, so still Dean didn't think he was breathing.

"Yeah," Dean said. "I don't know all of them, but I remember a lot of them."

"You mean, you remember the dreams--your dreams are the same?" Sam's voice was tight and keyed-up; Dean didn't think the truth was going to help, but he sure as hell wasn't going to start off lying.

"No," Dean said, and he tried to be as low-key as possible, which probably wasn't much, not under the circumstances. "I mean, I _remember_ them. They're not just dreams; they happened."

"Who _are_ you?" Sam asked, again, his voice so rough Dean could barely understand him.

"I'm Dean," he said. "I'm your brother."

* * *

The food arrived before Sam could freak out, which was a bit of good luck that had Dean wanting to look around and see if Cas had maybe zapped in from wherever. Sam kind of shut down after that, but he was eating and letting Dean eat, and for whatever reason neither of them was getting too wound up over the whole messed-up situation. Sam didn't wait for a check, though, only dropped a couple of tens on the table and motioned to Dean to come with him.

It was another silent walk, more streets that Dean had no idea about, more turns and corners and shortcuts, but it wasn't all that long before Sam was opening the deadbolt on a nondescript door between a carniceria and bodega and starting up a flight of narrow, steep steps.

Sam's room was just that: a room. There was a bed shoved into the corner and a tiny bathroom behind a pressboard "wall" in the other corner, bars on the one window and a hotplate sitting on a rickety card table.

"It's cheap," Sam said, breaking the silence.

"I sure as hell hope so," Dean muttered. It was clean, though, everything scrubbed down and the bed made with an almost military precision. And there were books, everywhere. Stacks of them: next to the bed and under the card table and taking up more floor space than Dean would have thought possible.

"For not remembering who you are," Dean said, picking up a book at random and flipping through it, "this is a pretty good start."

Sam sat down on the bed, leaning his forearms on his thighs, eyes down. He looked… not tired, exactly. Worn down, maybe. "There's--it's like flipping a switch, reading about stuff. I know it, but it doesn't occur to me until I read it. So, I started--they're from the trash, some of them. Second-hand stores, friends of the library sale." He looked up and caught Dean's eye. "What you said," Sam said. "Before. That you're my brother--it was the same thing. As soon as you said it, I knew it."

Dean nodded, leaning one shoulder against the wall, keeping a careful eye on Sam, and if he still wasn't happy with the situation, he couldn't deny that something inside him lightened at Sam's words. "Good," he said, smiling. Sam smiled back, and they did the little brotherly bonding thing for longer than Dean was ever going to cop to.

Of course, it being their lives and all, it was more complicated than that.

"Maybe I knew it before you said it," Sam said. "I just--I thought I was dreaming about you because I saw you. Like, the first thing I remember is you, with your family, so I thought, y'know, that was why I kept dreaming about you--"

"Sam--" Dean started, because, wait, _what?_, but Sam kept going, words spilling out of him like they'd knocked open a hole in a dam, and Dean couldn't even begin to slow it down.

"They were there, too, once or twice, but you. You were always there, and I'd see you driving, or shooting pool, and I just thought, I don't know, you were a familiar face and that's why you were practically living in my head, but then you were a kid, and I knew it was _you_, and that was weird enough, but then I--I--"

Sam broke off, breathing hard, his voice raw, and Dean didn't want to push him, but he figured they might as well start dealing with whatever of the bad stuff was coming. "You what, man?"

"I saw you die," Sam choked out. "I saw you dead on the floor, torn apart."

"Yeah," Dean sighed, and Sam's head jerked up again, like maybe he'd been expecting Dean to tell him that one really was only a dream. Dean shrugged. "It's… complicated."

"That's it?" Sam demanded, after a few seconds. "All you can say is, 'It's _complicated_'?"

"What the hell else would you call this?" Dean snapped back, before he got himself under control and said, "Look, it is what it is, but yeah, that was real, too."

"So maybe I should be asking what you are, rather than who you are."

"Yeah," Dean snorted. "Been there, done that." As much as Sam's stubborn-as-a-mule expression still punched Dean's buttons, he was kind of happy to see it, rather than the one where Sam shut down on everything. "Look," Dean said. "You don't remember much, and I gotta tell you, there's probably good reason to let it take its own time coming back."

Sam stared back at him, jaw set.

"Fine. If you really want me to tell you, I will." Dean swallowed hard. "But it _is_ complicated and it will take me hours to get through. And we're gonna need at least a fifth."

"God, I am so sick of not knowing," Sam finally said, low and defeated.

"But you do--you said that when you read stuff, you remember that you know about it, right?" Dean waited until Sam nodded, and then put as much conviction in his voice as he could. "You can't rush this shit--it's better to let your brain figure things out on its own."

Sam shook his head again, and Dean added, maybe a little too honestly, "Don't fight it when it comes, though. You gotta be ready for it, know what you're gonna do when it hits or it'll tear you apart."

"Voice of experience?" Even without his memories, Sam could still zero in on Dean's weak spots with deadly accuracy, but Dean could hold it together well enough these days to hear the compassion under the blunt honesty. He figured he owed Lisa for that, for not kicking his sorry ass out, for letting him hang around long enough that he wasn't one raw nerve.

"Like I said," Dean answered. "It's really fucking complicated."

Sam nodded, and it got quiet for a while before he said, "It helps, though. Knowing there's a reason why I have the most active dream life in the city."

"Good," Dean said.

"What did you dream?" Sam asked. "You said you dreamed about me all the time--but you remember, so…"

"I thought you were gone," Dean said, choosing his words with care. "I--at first it was stuff from when we were kids or the last couple of years, like my brain was trying to figure out how to let you go. After a while, though--I kept seeing you back at the library and that wasn't anything--it hadn't happened."

"I go almost every day. I did even before I started keeping track of everything," Sam said. "That pretty much sums up my life: I dream shit and write it down; go to work; go try and figure out what the hell I was dreaming. Pretty boring if that's all you were seeing every night."

Dean laughed, and if it sounded a little rough, he didn't think Sam would care. "I am not going to argue."

"But you came anyway."

"Chasing a dream," Dean said, and shook his head. "Four states, man, and I don't want to talk about what Pennsylvania did to my baby's suspension."

"I'm sorry this is so fucked-up," Sam said. "I'm sorry you came all this way and I'm not really who--"

"Shut up." Dean couldn't help how much his voice was shaking, and he should care, should be able to hold it together better than he was, but the words came flying out anyway. "Seriously. Shut _up_. I don't _care_, I mean, I do, I want you to know who you are but--I thought you were--I had to sit there and watch you--just, shut up, okay?"

Sam nodded, then got up and fiddled with the some books, letting Dean get himself under control.

"It's almost dawn," Sam said, after a bit. "I don't know if there's some place you need to be--"

"Dude," Dean said. "I have no fucking idea where I even am, much less how to get back to where I left the car."

"If you want, you can stay," Sam said in a rush. "I mean, this place is nothing special, and if it's a bad night, I usually end up reading, but it's--it's clean? And I figured out how to make coffee."

"Yeah?" Dean eyed the ancient coffeemaker without much enthusiasm. "I'll believe that when I see it."

"Fine. You make it then."

"I could do that," Dean said.

"Awesome." Sam smiled and Dean figured he'd probably just been conned, but who really cared? When he came out of the bathroom, Sam had pulled a couple of blankets out of a box; one was over the window, blacking out the lights of the city and the rising sun, and he was folding the other one lengthwise to make a pallet. When he made like he was planning on sleeping on it, though, Dean stopped him.

"Nah, man. I've been up for a day straight; I could sleep on a rock if I had to."

Sam hesitated, but went when Dean pushed him toward the bed, stripping off his shirt and turning off the light. Dean hadn't been kidding; he was so tired that he barely made it past stretching out on the doubled-over blanket before he was asleep, but it was long enough that he knew how much he'd missed hearing Sam breathing in the same room.

* * *

The room was dim and shadowy when Dean came awake, his heart pounding with the creepy feeling of someone watching him. The light filtering in around the edges of the blanket was soft and muted, as though it was cloudy outside, and Sam sat next to him on the floor, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them.

"Sorry," Sam said. "Sorry, sorry, fuck, I'm such a mess."

Dean hauled himself upright, moving slow and cautious, still tired, and asked, "More dreams?"

"Always," Sam said and there was enough light to see the dull frustration in his eyes. "I believe you, I do, I know what you're saying is true, in my gut, I feel it, but I woke up and thought I'd dreamed _this_, and I had to make sure it was real."

"No problem," Dean told him. "I can't really believe it either, but I think we might have caught a break here." He should be worrying about how Sam got out of Hell, who might have helped him, and what price they were going to demand, but he could do that later.

"Yeah? So what do we do next?"

"Always with the hard questions, Sammy." Dean leaned back on his elbows, stretching out the kinks in his back, like that was going to help an answer pop into his brain. "I don't know, man," he finally admitted. "I'm all ears if you got any brilliant ideas."

Sam stayed curled around himself for a long minute, and then, like he'd come to a decision, unfolded and turned so he could reach under the bed, coming back out with an envelope wrapped and reinforced with duct tape. He held it for a minute before he tossed into Dean's lap. Dean raised an eyebrow, but Sam didn't say anything, so Dean opened it just as silently.

It was filled with cash, mostly twenties and fifties, but a fair number of smaller bills, too, and a smattering of hundreds. Dean whistled, low and long, and looked up at Sam.

"It's pretty much everything I've made," Sam said. "I was going to come find you. That was my brilliant idea. I had no idea who you were, but I was going to come find you and make you tell me why you were in my dreams." Dean stayed quiet, and Sam half-laughed, half-sighed. "Of course, if I'd just stayed there in the first place, I wouldn't have had to have gone looking for you at all."

"Sammy--"

"The first thing I remember, I mean, really remember, not whatever dream's standing in for remembering, is being outside a house. You were in it, I could see you, but I don't know, I just stood there until this bunch of guys came by, like a neighborhood watch and they didn't like me being there, especially when I couldn't tell them anything."

"Fuck," Dean bit out. "Morons. I knew I should have taken them down when I had the chance."

"They were okay about it--nobody tried to rough me up or anything--but they weren't taking no for an answer." Sam shrugged. "I could have taken them, I think I knew it even then, but I--man, I had nothing in my head. Nothing."

Dean sighed. "I know it's gotta suck, not knowing anything, but I'm sticking with how it's probably better to let it come back on its own."

"Yeah, well, I guess it started that night. They stuck me on the first bus out of town and I slept a little and dreamed about you." Sam shifted a little, his fingers bunching and smoothing the cloth of his jeans. "I stayed on the bus 'til the driver told me it was the end of the line." Unexpectedly, he grinned. "Couple of blocks from Times Square and I gotta tell you, that's a hell of a first thing to recognize."

"New York, New York," Dean said, forcing his voice to a lightness he didn't entirely feel, but he didn't think Sam needed to deal with Dean's overwhelming desire to go kick the shit out of some Indiana yokels. "It's a heck of a town."

"The libraries are awesome, " Sam said, and Dean didn't have to fake the smile at how _Sam_ Sam sounded. "I was only staying until I got enough cash together, though."

"Hey, it was a plan," Dean said, again lightly. "I just took care of it for you."

Sam smiled and looked like he was going play along, but then got ambushed by a yawn, which, since everybody knew those things were contagious, it wasn't Dean's fault that he ended up smothering one of his own.

"Is your brain done making sure I'm for real?" Dean prodded at Sam with one foot. "'Cause if it is, I vote we get some more shut-eye. We can figure shit out later."

Sam hauled himself up and onto the bed wordlessly, and Dean laid back down. Neither one of them fell asleep, though, and after a while Sam murmured, "Thanks for coming for me."

"You're welcome," Dean said, just as softly. "But I swear, Sammy, if you don't get some sleep and end up in one of your whiny, emo moods--which I'm betting your dreams are leaving out, but take my word for it, you're like the champ some days--I'll spike your coffee with NoDoze and take pictures of you bouncing off the walls."

Sam snorted, but his breathing evened out and deepened and took Dean right along with him.

* * *

The shower was running when Dean woke up again. The clock said it was well after noon and Dean was feeling almost like a functioning person, so he rolled to his feet and poked through the boxes until he found the coffee and got going on coaxing himself the rest of the way toward awake. Given that he was standing in the apartment of his not-dead and not-in-Hell brother, contemplating amnesia and life after the apocalypse and exactly how they'd gotten to where they were, Dean thought he was maybe entitled to fill a mug straight from where the fresh-brewed stuff dripped down rather than waiting for the entire pot to fill up before he started in.

He held off, though--knowing their lives, he figured he should probably save that for whatever was around the corner, because there always seemed to be something waiting to make things crazier. While everything was brewing, he got the blanket off the window and folded it and his makeshift bed away, and was standing and staring at the almost full coffee pot when Sam came back out of the bathroom. Dean caught a glimpse of the anti-possession tattoo as Sam pulled his t-shirt on over dripping wet hair, but didn't see anything like the marks Cas had left on him.

"You have one, too, right?" Sam asked, catching him looking. Dean pulled the collar of his shirt down, and Sam nodded. "They're… talismans? Wards, to keep us from being possessed."

"Right," Dean said, which more-or-less answered how he was going to break the news of their lives less ordinary.

"I dreamed it, us getting them, and then I spent a week trying to figure out the design. I think I weirded out a couple of the reference librarians." Sam said it like it was no big deal, and then added, "Maybe you could go through my notes, tell me what else I was seeing, because other than vampires, I'm not sure what I'm even looking at and researching legends is slow going."

"Sure," Dean answered, as soon as he could get his jaw off the ground. Sam cocked his head at him and wanted to know what was wrong, and he admitted, "I don't know whether I'm relieved or freaked here. You're taking all this pretty calmly."

"I'm not alone," Sam said, pulling two mugs out of a box and pouring them coffee. "I'm evidently not crazy, even if my life has seriously weird parts to it. I know a thousand times more than I did yesterday when I woke up--"

"Sam, the weird stuff is--really weird." Dean fucking hated that he had to be the one to start in on the bad news, but it was too much of a cop-out to stand there and not say something, just because it was hard for him to say it.

"Yeah, it's complicated," Sam said it even and calm, but his voice got thinner as he added, "I watched you get torn apart, remember?" Dean nodded, not trusting his own voice. Sam took a deep breath, and his voice steadied out, but he looked younger, somehow, like the gangly, unsure-of-himself Sam from high school. "It's not even that I'm not alone--it's, all this stuff I've been dreaming, not the weird stuff or the bad stuff, just the everyday, normal shit--it's real. You're real. I don't know if you get how huge that is right now."

"No," Dean said. "No, I get it." He took a gulp of coffee before he said things he wasn't sure Sam needed--or wanted--to hear and wished for some sugar to cut the industrial strength bitterness. He wasn't going to be drinking the stuff Sam had gone for occasionally, but hell, you could get mocha at McDonald's these days, so a little sugar wasn't a total cop-out.

"Here," Sam said, dropping a handful of sugar packets next to the coffeemaker. "Don't even try to make like you're not in a better mood if your first cup isn't black."

"Those are some detailed dreams you've been having," Dean muttered, but he tore open a couple of the packs and dumped them in. Sam laughed, an odd, half-strangled sound; when Dean looked at him he shook head.

"I didn't actually dream that," Sam said. "I just. Knew it." He grinned then, and laughed for real, which was an even better start to Dean's day than not having to drink his coffee black.

* * *

Sam still did his thing with working his way through the menu at breakfast, which meant he ordered a Western omelet; Dean bit his tongue and didn't mention how much Sam really hated having bits and pieces of stuff, even stuff he liked, like ham and onions and peppers, mixed in with his eggs. The agonized look on Sam's face at the first bite was pretty much worth Dean having to share his pancakes until the waitress could get back with plain scrambled eggs.

There was an old payphone in the back near the bathrooms; the waitress told Dean they'd almost forgotten about it until the solar flares had fried half the cell phone towers. On his way back to it, Dean couldn't help wondering whether Sam's near-calm was going to last when he remembered how they were linked to all the really freaky shit. There was another guy using the phone when Dean got back to it, but he was finishing up so Dean gave an old calling card a try and managed to get a call through to Lisa and Ben. He got their answering machine and kept it simple, let them know he was okay.

Sam was finishing up when Dean got back to the table; Dean felt it was an excellent time to go make sure his baby was okay. "C'mon, Sam--I've been wearing the same damn clothes for a couple of days, and it'd be nice to have my own toothbrush again."

"Of course," Sam said, serious, almost frowning. "You need to get clothes. It doesn't have anything to do with separation anxiety and the car." Dean shot him a glare, but Sam's face was innocent and Dean pretended not to notice the smirk hovering in his brother's eyes. Seeing as how Sam was practically giddy at knowing something else, just this once, Dean would let Sam think he'd gotten one by Dean.

The car was fine, and by some miracle, Dean had parked in a lot that would let him leave the car there for however long. Dean still wasn't letting himself think about how much it was going to cost, though, only grabbing his duffel and following Sam, at least until they got back around to the front of the library.

"I don't even know how many times I saw you here," Dean said. He wandered up the steps, closer to the lions, aware that Sam was following him, but not really seeing anyone else.

"I was here almost every day," Sam said, quietly. "Researching, trying to figure out all the shit I kept seeing, trying to decide what it all meant in dream symbolism. I kept trying to convince myself that the monsters couldn't be real no matter how vivid it all was." He sat down, leaving enough room for Dean to join him, and pulled his notebook out from his backpack. He opened it slowly, his fingers moving over each page, deliberate and careful, as though touching the paper made the words real. Unexpectedly, Dean thought about Dad--he'd never been that careful about his journal, but he'd thumb through it while he was thinking sometimes.

"You were always good at trying to figure things out," Dean told him. "I don't think that's telling you anything you don't already know."

Sam got a little red, which Dean filed away for later ragging purposes, but he shrugged it off and said, "I think you were right about letting everything take its time." He sounded pretty firm about it, which was about a thousand times better than he'd been before. "But I can't just sit around now that I know it's all real."

"I don't know that I could either, man," Dean told him.

"Yeah, so you asked me last night if I had any brilliant ideas, and, I don't know if it's brilliant, but." Sam took deep breath, hesitating until Dean gestured for him to go on. "It's kind of the same plan I had before, only instead of finding you, I figured I could check out some of the other stuff I've been dreaming and see if that didn't help make things more real. It worked with you--I dreamed so much about you, but now that you're here, I _know_ you somehow."

Dean nodded slowly, gave himself a little time to make sure his voice was even. Sam didn't need to be carrying Dean's baggage around on top of all the crap of not knowing who he was.

"Sounds like a plan," he said. "You got anyplace in mind first?"

"I--maybe college?" Sam shrugged. "Stanford, right?"

"Yeah," Dean answered. "Right." If Dean hadn't personally iced Zachariah, he'd be the front-runner for setting up this whole situation. Even dead and shadowed on the floor, Dean would bet serious money he was smirking at the thought of Dean having to watch Sam head off to Stanford again, which was something Dean did not need to be thinking about right then. "Listen, man, I really could use that shower."

"Right, right, of course," Sam said, and started off toward the subway.

* * *

The shower didn't help with everything bouncing around Dean's head, finding Sam only to have to let him go again, but at least he was clean and he bought himself a good twenty minutes to slam a lid on it all. If he could okay Sam taking out Lucifer, he could damn well deal with Sam heading off to find himself, even if this Sam had only a hazy idea of everything out there.

Sam was fidgeting around the apartment when Dean came out of the bathroom, picking up books only to barely glance at them before putting them down in a different pile.

"Hey," he said. "I'm supposed to work again tonight, but if you want to hang out here, that'd be okay."

"Yeah, sure," Dean said, scrubbing the towel over his head a little harder than he needed to.

"You don't have to stick around," Sam said. "I don't--you probably have other stuff you could be doing."

"I'm fine, Sam." Dean tossed the towel back into the bathroom.

"Or you could come with me again," Sam said. "There's, I don't have a TV; it's pretty boring--"

"Sam," Dean said, and how he wasn't gritting his teeth was beyond him. "Either way is fine. I won't die of boredom in the eight hours you'll be gone. I do actually know how to read, in case that's something you haven't caught back up on."

"Sorry," Sam said. "That's not--I didn't mean it that way."

"Yeah," Dean sighed. "I know. Look, I'm the one who should be apologizing; I'm not firing on all cylinders here." He shrugged. "This whole thing, it's weird." That wasn't the whole story, of course, but there's enough truth to it that Dean didn't feel bad saying it.

"I don't know--" Sam started, then cleared his throat. "I can't tell if I'm being too needy or, or demanding. I don't know what the baseline is here."

"You realize you're letting me set the bar, right?" Dean said, smirking a little. Sam's mouth quirked up into a smile and Dean could tell he was almost at the point where he was ready to roll his eyes at Dean. "Trust me, Sammy. I'll let you know when you get too high-maintenance."

Sam did roll his eyes at that; Dean found himself grinning back.

"Come hang out at the bar," Sam said, firmly. "We can grab something to eat on the way."

"Sure thing, princess," Dean said.

* * *

Sam had yet another hole-in-the-wall for dinner, this time Russian or something, and again, they knew him as soon as he walked in. They pointed to a table and were bringing over plates before Dean even got settled.

"The first time I came here, I told them I wanted to try everything," Sam said, with a helpless smile. "Half the time, I don't even know what it is."

"I think I'm gonna have to come down on the side of 'dude-stop-talking-and-eat,'" Dean said, after the first bit of--yeah, not quite sure what, but he was tasting potatoes and cheese on the inside, and fried-in-butter on the outside and sour cream on top of everything. Damn hard to go wrong with all of that, especially when it came with a little glass of vodka for each of them, vodka like Dean had never had before. The waiter, an old guy with gunmetal gray hair and beard streaked with white, came over and Sam picked up one of the glasses and toasted with him. They both exhaled once and took the shot in a single go, and the old guy turned to Dean, grinning as Dean picked up his own glass and followed.

"Goddamn," Dean gasped, once the pure liquid fire made it down his throat. "Didn't know you had it in you, Sammy."

"Only one, though," Sam said. "I might be wandering around with a blank slate in my head, but I'm not stupid."

He grinned at Dean and went off on some tangent about how different kinds of vodka were made--predictably enough, the giant geek had researched it--and Dean sat and nodded and soaked everything up for when he wasn't going to be shooting the breeze with Sam over every meal.

* * *

The club was the same, though it was the start of the weekend and everything was a little amped up. There was an extra bouncer in the room and Dean could tell that the girls on stage were the stars. Sam kept moving, sent the waitresses back out in record time, and generally worked his ass off. It wore Dean out to watch. He'd done his own time behind the bar, and it wasn't the worst job he'd ever snagged to make a little cash, but it sure as hell wasn't on his list of things to do for the rest of his life.

Not that he had any kind of a plan or anything.

"Hey, Sam," he called. "You got your notebook with you? I can fill in some of the gaps for you." He lowered his voice as Sam came closer. "What we were hunting."

Sam tossed him the key to the padlock on his locker and Dean managed to borrow a pen from one of the waitresses, so he sat at the end of the bar and wrote down as much as he could about whatever it was they'd been hunting and exactly what they did to take it out. Some, Sam didn't have enough about the dream for Dean to figure out what was going on; on a couple he didn't remember. None of them featured anyone's description that Dean could obviously peg as Ruby, so he thought maybe they were part of the three or so months when Gabriel had been trying to teach Sam a lesson. And yeah, Dean was definitely not looking forward to Sam trying to untangle the angels and their issues, but whatever. For the hell of it, Dean added notes on the timing of whatever he could remember, too, even if it was nothing more than _you were in high school and already a geek_.

"Thanks," Sam told him later, on the way back to the apartment. "I know you've probably got things going on in your own life, but I appreciate the help."

"No big deal," Dean answered, trying for casual but missing by a mile, based on the look Sam shot him as he unlocked the outer door. Sam didn't say anything, though, only led the way silently up the stairs. He didn't say anything after they were inside either, which suited Dean just fine--it wasn't like he hadn't survived Sam's adolescent moodiness already--except for the goddamn voice in the back of his head that wouldn't shut the hell up about sending Sam off to Stanford of all places, with no fucking idea of what he was going to find at the end of that particular rainbow.

Sam dropped his backpack on the floor and headed to the bathroom; Dean picked up one of the three hundred books Sam had laying around and flipped through it, not looking up when Sam came back out. It was stupid and juvenile, but he was doing it anyway. Sam dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed and stared down at his hands.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," Sam said, after an endless couple of minutes where Dean eyed him from under his lashes and Sam pretended not to notice. "But I'm just going to ask this and trust that you'll be honest with me."

"Okay," Dean said, slowly.

"Don't answer this right away, okay?" Sam said. "Just--think first."

"Sam--"

"No, really, Dean. The dreams--you're always there. Just you. No other family, no parents, not--not really." Sam hesitated, long enough for Dean to wonder what he remembered, whether it was him and Dad going at it, or maybe finding Dad after he'd made the deal. "Anyway. It's the two of us."

"Yeah," Dean admitted. "That's how it was."

"Okay." Sam took a deep breath. "So what I want to ask you is if you'd come with me--"

He held up his hand as soon as Dean opened his mouth. "Just. Wait, okay? I don't know how much I'm going to remember, and I don't know if I'm ever going to be the guy you knew--"

"Okay, you can shut up now," Dean said, and maybe he was yelling, but getting Sam to let go of something he'd gotten stuck in his head was never an easy thing. "I get it--you're not sure about anything. I figured that out about ten minutes into this whole trip."

"I don't want you to come out of, of obligation," Sam said, not listening to Dean, like always. "Out of some feeling that you owe whoever I used to be--"

"Used to be?" Dean snorted. "I gotta tell you, man, from where I'm standing, all you're missing is the keepsake photo album, because you're still the same damn stubborn know-it-all you always were."

"Think about it!" Sam bellowed, at full-volume, loud enough that someone started banging upstairs. "Is that so much to ask?"

Dean found himself still holding onto the book, so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Please," Sam asked. "I'm not saying that it's all or nothing. I'm not. I just--you said I was gone and you were making peace with it--"

"Yeah--no," Dean choked out. " Not really." He swallowed hard. "I wasn't looking to check out, but that's about all I can say."

"I don't want to screw up your life," Sam said, quietly now. "Me being here is one thing, but if you're saying it's all true--making you go through it again while I put the pieces together…That's--that's something else."

"Sam," Dean sighed. "Our lives…just were what they were, man."

He hesitated, half-expecting to get into it more with Sam, but Sam only watched him, eyes steady and calm, the way they'd been when he'd insisted Dean come with him to try to rescue Adam, like they'd been when Dean had agreed to let him go try for Lucifer, the same as when he'd stood in the cemetery and did what he'd promised to do. Dean got it--sort of--got that Sam needed Dean to make the decision without all the baggage they'd been dragging around for forever, but there wasn't much doubt in his mind.

"I don't--It wasn't a choice, then, not ever, but I wouldn't have done it any differently if it had been," Dean said, rock-steady and ready to out-stubborn Sam if he had to. "That's a yes, by the way," he added. "And it's not cause I think I owe you."

"What about Indiana, the people I saw you with?"

"I--we can go there. Stay connected. I probably wouldn't be here without them," Dean said, gesturing to Sam's notebook. "They're on your list, one more piece of the puzzle. And we really need to start in South Dakota--I know you're thinking college, you have a lot of dreams in there about it, but we have to stop at the junkyard first--"

"You're serious," Sam interrupted. "You'll come with me? Just like that?"

Dean started to laugh, because of _course_ he'd go with Sam, but then he caught sight of Sam's hands, clenched in the sheets, as tight and hard as Dean had been holding the book, and toned it down to a smile. "Yeah, just like that."

"Okay," Sam said, in a rush. "I--good. Thanks. Yeah. Like, now? I mean, not right now, just, do you have stuff you need to take care of first?"

"Free and clear," Dean said. Tradition demanded that he give Sam grief over how excited he was--at the very least, he should be laughing at Sam--but since he mostly felt the same way, he was going to give it a miss this time around. "What about you? You got room to shake up that boring-ass schedule of yours?"

"The room rents by the week," Sam said. "And they don't owe me anything at work, so if I don't show up, I don't show up, and--yeah. I'm good. Except, maybe some boxes? For the books?"

"What? All of them?" Dean asked. "Dude, I know we have memory issues here, but my baby is way too small--not to mention too cool--to be a bookmobile."

"Oh," Sam said, reining in the enthusiasm. "Right, yeah. Sure. I'm sor--"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Dean sighed. "Stop apologizing. We'll figure out some way to make them all fit--" He caught sight of the tiniest of smirks and realized he'd been played again, and amnesiac or not, Sammy was only getting one pass from Dean and he'd already handed that one out. "I mean, you never know when we'll need fire-starters."

"God, you're a dick," Sam said, shaking his head and letting the smirk out for real. "I guess it's good I found that out early on."

"Ready to bail already?"

"No way," Sam said, still smiling, but serious as all hell. "You're stuck with me."

"Tell me something I didn't know," Dean answered. Sam was still standing there, dopey grin on his face, and if Dean gave in and grinned back, he'd be setting all kinds of dangerous precedents, but it was impossible not to. "C'mon, man, you're the one with the plan. Go see if you can bum some boxes from the place downstairs and let's get this show on the road."

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this popped into my head not two hours after the S5 finale, and I sketched out an outline and roughed in some scenes the next day, but my Big Bang was a mess and I had an early posting date, and then I had to recover from the mad dash to the end of that, and then this kept getting longer and longer and longer, and here we are, barely a month from S6. I have no idea if this has been done already (I haven't read anyone's codas because I only had a tenuous grasp on this as it was) and it's been ages since I've written anything long with Sam and Dean, but it really, really wanted to be written.
> 
> Thanks to 1orelei for reading along with the rough, rough draft; to withdiamonds, who was her usual excellent, enabling self; and ginormous thanks to bientot, who dove in when I was not even a third of the way through, and who waved pompoms and cheered and nudged and generally was awesome during July and August, and who took on the extraneous commas and my lay/lie issues without a single cross word. ♥


End file.
